


You Don't Get To Decide You Didn't

by JeromeClarke107



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Angst, Britta Perry is the best, Episode: s04e05 Cooperative Escapism in Familial Relations, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Internal Monologue, Self-Harm, Sorta fluffy i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29115897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeromeClarke107/pseuds/JeromeClarke107
Summary: Jeff goes home for Thanksgiving, and Britta speaks for him when he can't make the words come.
Relationships: Britta Perry/Jeff Winger
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	You Don't Get To Decide You Didn't

**Author's Note:**

> Ya'll it's been soooooo long. Ugh. Writer's block is the worst. 
> 
> Anyway. Hopefully this can get me out of my slump. Jeff/Britta is so cathartic to write.
> 
> Prompt: Hate

Jeff stands in his father’s living room, tears streaming down his face and his scar burning like it hasn’t in years, and he breathes.

He reminds himself to do it, to keep taking in air, because he’s afraid he’ll stop breathing if he doesn’t. He’s afraid the weight of the pure hatred he feels for the man standing before him will destroy his insides; will collapse his lungs and pierce his heart. He’s afraid of that feeling that he hates, that vulnerable feeling that he’s only ever revealed in its entirety to the reflection in his bathroom mirror.

He hates the scrunched up face he makes when he cries. He’s ugly when he cries.

His father’s face is as blurry as it’s always been in his memories, but he speaks to it anyway. He clenches his fist and glares into the same blue eyes he’d inherited so long ago.

“I hate you,” he whispers, even though the words sting on his tongue and his fingernails are digging into his palm.

And then his father has the audacity to ask him why.

He thinks it over for a moment, forces himself to remember the dead looks he’d seen in his mother’s eyes for years, the scars that live between his thighs that mean he’ll always have to fuck in the dark, the pain that clenches inside of him and comes out in a fit of broken rage when he thinks about his friends leaving him.

“You hurt me,” he finally settles on, “You hurt me, and I’ll always hate you for that.”

His father takes a sip of whiskey. Then he shrugs his shoulders.

“If putting all of your issues on me makes you feel better, then fire away, son.”

Jeff tries to think of a clever retort, but he can’t come up with one. He can’t correlate the angsty, old drunk standing in front of him with the man who’d once been his hero.

Britta’s hand grips his for a moment, and then she speaks for him.

“You don’t get to pretend like you didn’t hurt him.”

All he does is look at her, and before Jeff can completely comprehend what’s happening, there’s a ceramic ashtray slamming into the wall beside his father’s head and shattering to the floor. He looks at Britta in awe as she brushes her hair back behind her ears and stands in front of Jeff like he’s something she’s sworn to protect.

Willy Jr. screams, and a familiar anger crosses his father’s face and distorts his features.

“You could’ve hit me!”

Britta crosses her arms and speaks in the kind of voice she uses when she knows she’s right and Jeff’s wrong. For once in his life, he’s so fucking happy to hear it.

“I’m a good shot, sir. If I’d wanted it to hit you, it would have.”

His eyes don’t leave her face. The polite nonchalance he hides behind so often has been removed from the room, demolished by Britta and her strong sense of loyalty and justice. Her outburst leaves him startled; a man who’s done too much to too many and who’s never had to look even one of his victims in the eyes.

She grabs Jeff’s hand in hers and starts walking him towards the door, “Come on, Jeff. You deserve better, anyway.”

. . .  
They make their way to the car, Britta with a confident stride and Jeff too dumbstruck to speak.

He reaches for the driver’s seat door and climbs in, but she climbs in beside him instead of going to the other side. 

“You’ve had an emotionally crippling evening. You’re not driving home. Scoot scoot scoot.”

“I’m not the one who just chucked something at someone’s head, “ he mutters as she practically forces her body in beside his, so he has to climb over the gear shift to land in the passenger seat. She takes his keys from the cup holder and the engine starts, but his eyes are glued to her face. She pushes her hair out of her eyes again.

And she doesn’t try to ease him into conversation, just drives with him in silence while he stares at her and takes her in. Britta looks good (she always looks good) but there’s something different about her now, behind the wheel of his car and a confident smile playing on her lips.

For once, he thinks, Britta actually _feels_ good, too.

It’s a nice look for her. A beautiful one, actually.

“Thanks for…you know. Trying to murder my dad. Just for future reference, the police and I don’t have a great friendship going on after years of being a defense attorney. They won’t let me bail you out if you succeed next time.”

She smiles.

“If I was trying to murder your father, he’d be dead.”

“You’re scary.”

She smiles and a different kind of pain swells up in his chest. It’s the good kind, the kind he’d felt during paintball when they’d had sex on the table, the kind he’d felt when he (begrudgingly) realized that her cats are kind of awesome, the kind he’d felt when she’d told him to go fuck himself on the first day he met her.

Maybe love is painful, he thinks. Whether you’re losing or gaining it.

“Of course I’m scary,” she smirks over at him as she stops at a red light.

“I lived in New York.”

**Author's Note:**

> " When a person tells you you hurt them, you don't get to decide you didn't."
> 
> \- Louis C.K.


End file.
